Iron Pyrite

This is iron pyrite (Fool's Gold) and crystal quartz. The field of view is just under a half inch. I used the same undiffused lightsource as the last post so the specular highlights are all blown out. This was collected near the bottom of the Colisseum Mine (a huge open pit mine located in the mountains west of the dry lake bed between Primm and Nipton Road).

Peridot

This is another attempt at focus stacking. I used four bright hot bare bulbs for light, which means the highlights are all blown out. As before, this isn't as sharp as I'd like. This specimen was collected from Dish Hill, which is a volcano in Southern California just off of Route 66 east of Barstow. The yellow green crystals are peridot, the dark green crystals are fayalite and the black mineral is pyroxene. This is a xenolith (which means it originated in the Earth's mantle and was ejected up to the surface during a volcanic eruption).

Calico Basin...Random Nature Shots

Bee There

Just a touch of sharpening in PS. I also brightened and saturated the colors around the Bee.

IGT Sky

Another from my iPhone looking out the balcony by my cube.

Aloe

Red Rock from Spring Mountain Park

My first time using the Night Scenery mode.

Photo Shoot at the Video Shoot :)

Photo Shoot

Didn't use the tripod here but I had a lot of caffeine so I'm happy the photo came out clear. This was my first ever trip to a junk yard, wow what a man's world!

Boba

With my iPhone since it doesn't attract attention

Griffin's First Time

Lake Mead excursion with the dogs. This was Griffin's first dive into deep waters. He needed a little encouragement.

Good Photography Website

I came to know about this website that teaches you Photography, would like to recommend this to those who may find it useful :)
http://www.kenrockwell.com/

Light & Hope

This is a very unique looking church built with no supporting beam in the building structure in Taiwan's "Dong-Hai University" . The interior design is just outstanding, as you look toward to the window panel, the wall gets brighter and brighter symbolizing the God is there and there is hope. I took the picture and convert it to black and white and increased the contrast a bit.

Taken with compact CANON SD870

Downtown Shooting.

Stayed in Manual Mode. I messed with the Shutter Speed, Aperture and ISO. Mostly with the Shutter Speed. I wanted to get some shots of signs on East Fremont as well but the number of shady characters down there persuaded me to come back another time. I cropped the images of the Chief and the Plaza. Other than that I stayed out of Photoshop.

Devil Spider

A while back I posted a picture of a spider web that I took in Key west. Well here are the pictures I took of the spider. I believe it's called a "Key West Devil Spider". It's not as much for art sake, more just to show you this freaky lookin' arachnid.

leaf

My Piano

Needed to get a better angle

Zoom Zoom

There's a bike club that rides around the lake in my neighborhood every Tues night. I've always wanted to be up close to the huge pack of riders so I set up my camera right along side the road and started shooting. I had the camera on burst mode and then I stacked a couple of photos on top of eachother in photoshop. I also messed with the saturation to make it more interesting.

Couldn't resist...

The kid is just so darn cute. I will try to post them sparingly!

Neighbors plant

Trying to be like Dan. He's the flora guy.

Cactus

Too bad all the fruits dead, but still interesting I think.

More Water

I like water. So you will probably see a few more posts like this!

This Might be Better

Okay... we tried a few things with voting and whatnot, and we decided to change the Star rating to a single check box to help decide who took the Photo of the Month. You can vote on more then one photo, votes will be tallied at the end of each month. Also, there has been much debate as to whether people can vote on their own Photos, and it seems I have been overruled, soooo if you think you got the best shot, go ahead.
There is one more thing, a feature was added so that you can comment anonymously.

Working Bee

Saw this working bee at a garden in Pasadena, she was too busy and didn't even care if my lens was only 2 inches away :)

Compact Canon SD870 Digital Macro
Slight color adjusting on Photoshop

Take Off!!

I made a return trip to the airport this weekend.

Bistro

I added the beam on the ceiling from another image. Also blended with a filter effect to make it a little uglier

Stars in the making!

Some images I shot during a music video shoot.

Vacation

I was messing around with some subtle color adjustments in Photoshop. These are photos I took in San Diego and Catalina.

Open Sea

Who says turtle can't smile

This is my favorite picture of my baby turtle :) many people think reptiles don't have much/have no facial expression, but I really think they do if you use your imagination. I think she's smiling at me in this picture don't you think? :)

Canon SD870/compact
shot with digital macro with no retouching

Crinoid stem segments

Another experiment with focus stacking - only 3 images this time. Again, not as clear as I'd like. The largest stars are about 4mm in diameter. They are fossilized crinoid (sea lily) stem segments in gray limestone. Easy to miss when hiking unless you're crawling on the ground - collected from a top secret location in the Muddy Mountains.

Primm Valley Coyote

Eating a rabbit off the Tee. Cheap Canon compact camera

Tokyo Tour Ticket

This is just a photo I snapped of our tour ticket when we went to Tokyo last March.

Desert Shrubbery

stacked focus experiment

These (unidentified) crystals were found at the Whale Mine, located between Sandy Valley and Goodsprings. Each flower shape is about .5 cm across. This is a series of 5 photographs taken with a Canon 100mm Macro lens. Each photo had a very narrow depth of field - combinezp was used to "stack" the in focus parts for this composite. I don't have a true macro rail, so the image isn't as clear as I'd like - you can see some "double image" in the lower left corner. I used a copy stand to move the camera up and down (to change the focus) but it's not precise enough; I'll have to invest in a macro rail someday...

Up Close and Personal

These pictures were taken this summer on a ferry in Galviston Texas. People feed these birds so they stay very close to the ferry. I snapped around 200 pictures of birds. Narrowing it down to these 5 was tough. The drama was added using Lightroom and Photoshop.

Airport Construction